Random Old Records Podcast #18

Yes indeed! The 18th episode of Random Old Records Podcast is out NOW and ready to be downloaded, streamed, and/or enjoyed at your leisure. I've been on a freakin' tear collecting tons of NEW jams and diligently sifting through them to put together this hour of hits featuring the likes of the Strange Boys, the Catburglars, White Mystery, Happy Birthday, the Rantouls, the Overnight Lows, Bare Wires, Harlem, Garbo's Daughter, and so much more! Check out some Hollows and Mean Jeans tracks from the latest Trouble In Mind singles I wrote about last week, and a chunk of songs from the AMAZING new Los Angeles Nuggets box set from Rhino. Rock n' roll has been killin' it in 2010 so far, so let me be your guide if you've been to lazy or busy to keep up.

If you're new to this blog, well first of all, thanks for reading! If you're a vet, then you know the drill. There's a ton of different ways to get the podcast from the internet to your computer and into your ears. First off, you can go to my podcast page at http://rorpodcast.mevio.com, where you can stream it off the page, download it, or subscribe with iTunes, RSS, and everything else under the sun so you never miss an episode! If you just wanna grab the file and not mess around, you can download it HERE. Are you bored with Pandora or bummed out since WOXY went under (AGAIN)?! Check out Real Punk Radio! It's a 24/7 streaming radio site featuring loads of amazing garage, rock n' roll, punk, psych, old-school country, and hardcore. It also just so happens to be where Random Old Records #18 will be premiering at 4 PM EST today! Point your browser to http://realpunkradio.com, join the chat, and talk some shit. You can also hear Maximumrocknroll Radio and a bunch of Garagepunk.com podcasts there, so don't hesitate! Last, but not least, you can simply click the play button on the miniature slab of black wax directly to your right to stream it right here and right now. Viva technology!

Just check the comments for the playlist. It's been a long, stupid, confusing, and kinda frightening winter, and all this sunshine has got me seriously jazzed up. The annual Cincypunk Fest was last weekend, and I'm working up an EPIC write-up to let y'all know about what's going on in the fair and beautiful Queen City. There's also a review describing the sunshine pop brilliance of The Millennium coming, so just keep smiling, download the podcast, and watch this space! Thanks for listening!

Trouble In Mind might save rock n' roll!

For those of you living in a cave for the past year, Chicago's Trouble In Mind label has been putting out a steady stream of killer 7" vinyl records from the cream of the current EXPLOSION of garage/punk/psych/bubblegum bands that have been dominating my ears for as long as my aging, ADD-addled brain can remember. Have you heard of Charlie & The Moonhearts? White Wires? Ty Segall? CoCoComa? Sonic Chicken 4? Trouble In Mind has been documenting them all with gusto, all wrapped in a generic, simple, yet iconic label and sleeve design that reminds this humble blogger of the technicolour yawn that decorated classic bubblegum killers on Buddah Records from the likes of the Ohio Express, Lemon Pipers, and the 1910 Fruitgum Company. I might be behind the curve (as usual), but singles have become inexplicably COOL again. Remember when big time rock bands started releasing epic 80 minute albums in the mid 90s, just because they could?! Them shits have been dead as disco for forever now, and short-run pressings of 7" vinyl have once again become my musical vessel of choice. Who has the time to wade through loads of crap to find a song that might rock your soul?! Give me a catchy, instantly memorable A side coupled with an intriguing B side any day. Winter is over, the sun is shining like a bastard in a bar fight, and Trouble In Mind just released a bunch of new records. SWEET DEAL!

TIM #09 is from Hollows, a Chicago five-piece that might be one of the most exciting new bands I've heard in awhile. I recently picked up their debut LP on Addenda Records, so I was pretty freakin' pumped to get this lil' two song firebomb. If you're a fan of vintage '60s girl group sounds, then you know the drill, but don't expect the perfectly coiffed and buffed vocal stylings of the Chiffons or the Ronettes. Hollows features four nerdy females with punk rock sneers weaving shaky, sloppy, and sometimes transcendent harmonies over an insistent, throbbing vintage organ and '77-style power chord punk guitars. The end result reminds me a lot of rough and tumble early Blondie tracks, especially on the A side "Bobby Blueheart." There's a lot more going on beneath the surface though, as the tune winds its way through abrupt stops and starts, filling in the blanks with ghostly, wordless backing vocals, and tempering the sweetness with a healthy dose of nervous, sinister early '80s vibes that may be lifted directly from Rough Trade bands like Delta 5 and the Au Pairs. The opening of "Walkaway" totally rips the shit out of "Thin White Line" by San Fran punk legends The Avengers, but who cares?! It quickly settles into an intense surf-psych groove with vague, sinister references to forbidden love and back alley abortions, and serves as a modern update to the Jaynettes' immortal "Sally Go Round The Roses" only with guns and casual profanity involved. "Walkaway" is the clear winner here, but both songs are more worthy of the $5 you're gonna spend on a lousy Tuscan Chicken wrap from that fast casual restaurant at lunch tomorrow.

Hollows

TIM #10 features two tracks from the Liminanas, a French band that offers up a sound that aims for the vintage '60s world of ye-ye pop, but end up sounding rather ordinary. They're certainly pleasant enough, but that era of pop music is lost in time and owned by the iconic presence of France Gall, Francoise Hardy, and Serge Gainsbourg. Maybe there's something lost in translation, but to these ears there's just not enough modern grit in Liminanas' sound to get me going. Much better is TIM #11 from Portland punk rockers Mean Jeans. Their LP on Dirtnap, Are You Serious?, is a prime slab of Ramones revivalism that is just too damn fun to ignore. One of the happiest by-products of 2010 internet-sired culture is that genres can be cut and pasted with abandon, since the entire history of recorded music is readily available to everyone on the planet. It's no longer shocking that the GIGANTIC drums that kick off "Tears In My Beers" sound strikingly similar to "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure. Luckily, there's no CGI ninja shit in the Mean Jeans sound, just happy-go-lucky traditional punk rock filled with dude-approved crunch and girl-friendly bubblegum sweetness. "Party punk" got such a bad rap in the '90s, turning into an exclusive club of meatheads in board shorts getting as wrecked as possible in preparation for a 3 AM kitchen shout-a-long to Misfits and NOFX songs. Remember when Joey Ramone sang "we need change and we need it fast, before rock becomes part of the past"?! It still hasn't gone away, no matter what boring and inconsequential people do to ruin its reputation.

By the time End Of The Century rolled around, the Ramones were on a nostalgia kick, with Phil Spector guiding the brothers four back to bouffant hair and rock n' roll beach parties. It might stink mightily of the past, but when the Mean Jeans ask for the keys and ask if you're "Cool 2 Drive," it will definitely remind you of all the stupid shit that you did last weekend. This shit is UNIVERSAL! It reminds me of an era I was born too late for, that I daydream about on a daily basis. Good thing Trouble In Mind is around to remind all us young folks of jukeboxes stuffed with floor fillers and foot stompers and maybe more importantly, that a label can establish a REAL identity and a trademark of quality that hasn't been seen in a long, long time. It might seem hopelessly retro, true, but who the hell knows? Maybe we're on the cusp of a new rock n' roll golden age. There has to be a breaking point, and mainstream music has been so goddamn terrible for years that all these little labels kicking out quality 7" wax just might take over sooner than later. They might blame piracy for declining sales, but someone sure is buying the shit out of these records, eh?!

In case you missed it, Random Old Records Podcast #17 is out and about, featuring an hour of new and classic punk rock from Teengenerate, New Bomb Turks, Charlie & The Moonhearts, Avengers, Mean Jeans, The Lewd, and loads more! Check out http://rorpodcast.mevio.com to stream, download, or subscribe, or now you can stream the latest episode right off of this here blog page by clicking on the record directly to your right. Pretty sweet, huh?! The next episode will be out next Wednesday, featuring a few tunes from the Trouble In Mind singles you just read about, plus a selection of the TONS of incredible new rock n' roll I've acquired in the last month or so. You'll hear shit-hot tracks from Jim Jones Revue, Bare Wires, Wizzard Sleeve, and tons more! You can hear the world premiere at 4 PM EST, 4/14/10 over at http://realpunkradio.com. You can tune in there any day of the week at any time of day to hear great punk, rock n' roll, psych, and all kinds of music with attitude. Enjoy this wonderful weather and as always, thanks for listening!!